


What about love?

by dragon_rider



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, First Kiss, First Meetings, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, M/M, Meet-Cute, Multi, POV Jaskier | Dandelion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:54:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28875990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragon_rider/pseuds/dragon_rider
Summary: They both just…stared. Which was okay! Jaskier had intruded on their night out, and--hopefully--they were also noticing how very striking Jaskier himself was.He was a free lover, he thought with conviction. He could be their ménage à trois.A guy could dream.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 6
Kudos: 160





	What about love?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elder-flower (elder_flower)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elder_flower/gifts).



> Happy birthday, Charlie!!! ILY, you're great, I'm sorry this is a piece of trash but I wanted to give you something ;w;
> 
> Thanks to Daze for the beta <3

Jaskier was a good judge of character. He was loud, crazy, over-confident, but he was also loyal to a T, and loved both platonically and romantically with every fiber of his being. When he met someone  _ good _ , oh- he felt it down in his bones, that he had to have them by his side, and that one day they would be glad Jaskier had fought tooth and nail to be with them too.

It had been the case in college with Essi and Priscilla. The three picked the same major, so they shared a lot of classes and Jaskier knew at first sight they were going to be friends. He would see to it and make it happen. Fast-forward five years and the three of them were thick as thieves. Jaskier prided himself on that being one of his wisest choices. He adored them both: where people would use Jaskier and get tired of his sunny and lively approach to life, Essi and Priscilla laughed and tried to follow along or at least encourage him. They had been there for him when Valdo fucking Marx had broken his heart and then again when he’d stomped all over the tiny, shiny pieces of Jaskier’s love, and then yet again when that hadn’t been enough and that bastard had dared to spit on Jaskier’s music too.

Jaskier told himself every day that he was worth it in the end: worth the endless chatter and texts and audio messages, worth the nights without sleep that his friends spent helping to cheer him up, worth the constant attention Jaskier needed from them, and a hundred other annoying, little things he wasn’t even aware he was doing most of the time.

He’d met Geralt and Yennefer in the theater in a reenactment of Hamlet. Jaskier’s date had stood him up, and to his left side had sat the most gorgeous, captivating man in the whole universe, along with the most beautiful, enchanting woman. Judging by their linked arms, they were an item, which meant Jaskier had a crush over a  _ couple _ , not a single individual, and he’d spent the majority of the play trying to come up with a good line to say to them so they would  _ notice _ him.

He was painfully aware, thanks to his dick of an absent date, that sometimes he came across a bit obnoxious or--God forbid--a little creepy.

Good Lord in heaven, even the color of their eyes was unique. The man's eyes were a light hazel, almost yellow (like a wolf ready to devour Jaskier's heart, and Jaskier would love to die like that) and the woman's eyes were violet. Jaskier didn't even know those colors were possible in real life, except for Elizabeth Taylor.

“I can’t believe you didn’t get me the VIP tickets, Geralt,” the woman had complained when it was over and people were rushing backstage to meet the lead cast or just leaving for home. “One thing I asked of you, and you couldn’t even give me that.”

Yikes. Jaskier winced in sympathy for the handsome stranger named Geralt. His wife (Jaskier was good at spotting rings but not so good at caring about those) not only sounded angry but also deeply disappointed and  _ done _ . She looked like the most breathtaking menace Jaskier had ever laid eyes on.

“They were sold out, Yen,” the man--Geralt--countered, the poor dear seemingly done with the argument, but in a more tired dad sort of way, and not the ‘I am so done with you that I will murder you’ vibe his significant other was sporting. “What was I supposed to do?”

The moment she was turning to no doubt snarl in his ear something very terrifying and powerful, Jaskier cleared his throat and gave them his most charismatic smile.

“Excuse me. You’re such a lovely couple; it’s a pity hearing you fight over something I can easily and very willingly fix,” he assured them. “I could sneak you backstage no problem, if you give me one moment.”

They both just…  _ stared _ . Which was okay! Jaskier had intruded on their night out, and--hopefully--they were also noticing how very striking Jaskier himself was.

He was a free lover, he thought with conviction. He could be their ménage à trois.

A guy could dream.

“Who the fuck are you?” Geralt asked him, a thunderous frown in place. It was hilarious, having him curse in a clearly tailored suit with his sleek platinum-white hair up in an elegant ponytail, and it did stand out to Jaskier how the man had shown an emotion after sounding mostly apathetic to his wife.

“Excuse my idiotic husband,” she extended her hand across said husband and offered it to Jaskier not to shake, but for him to kiss, which he obliged delightedly. “I’m Yennefer Vengerberg.”

“Jaskier Pankratz,” he introduced himself. “Pleasure to meet you both. Now if you’d like to follow me?”

She’d grabbed his arm faster than he was done talking, and her grumpy husband got up to go along. It was much more Yennefer leading and Jaskier following, but he did wave security away (they knew him, he usually got complimentary tickets if he so wished since he was friends with all the cast) and got them to meet the actors and actresses, as promised.

He did get Yennefer’s number right away after that, and he learned she was the kind of person that just decided to have something and got it straight away, so they were fast friends. She either invited Jaskier to the opera or ballet or another play, or asked if he could smuggle her when she wasn’t fast enough to get tickets to things she wanted. It was refreshing, going out and being around someone so unapologetic about being who she was and so unafraid to get what she wanted. Jaskier was an excellent pretender of both things, but Yennefer was the real deal.

Geralt usually didn’t come along. Jaskier learned the man was very private and preferred to spend all of his spare time with his daughter or his dog (a gorgeous brown and dark Spanish Mastiff called Roach that was, surprisingly, more social than her owner) if he could get away with it, so Jaskier took it into his own hands to befriend the man, getting up at the crack of dawn to have a long run with both Geralt and Roach every day.

They were the most perfect married couple Jaskier had ever met or even imagined could exist. They even dressed as if to match, though that wasn’t difficult at all: Yennefer wore only black and white, and Geralt only black and dark shades of grey, which was a joke that Geralt hadn’t much appreciated when Jaskier had made it, but that landed better than his Batman joke about Geralt’s limited wardrobe for some reason, because it didn’t earn Jaskier a punch in any part of his body and fuck, Geralt had a strong hook, those lovely muscles were not for show.

It was the easiest time Jaskier had ever had with getting close to anyone. It did help his case a lot when he met their daughter, sweet Ciri, and the teenager recognized him and his work as a musician and demanded her parents Jaskier give her singing and music lessons. Jaskier’s music wasn’t for everybody (despite what that shitface Valdo would say about it, Jaskier did not, in fact, compose for the masses) and he couldn’t have been happier that someone so young and sophisticated as Ciri liked it.

His first year of friendship with them passed in a joyful blur. He saw Geralt at least once a day, and when the man was not in town, he would trust Jaskier to look after Roach. Once a week, Yennefer would invite him to dinner with just the two of them on the night Ciri spent over at her grandparents’. Twice a week, he made time to teach Ciri his beloved art, Geralt keeping a careful eye over them the first couple of months, but then generally closing the door of his office to let them laugh and sing their lungs out on their own.

It came to a point where Jaskier realized, quite abruptly and irrevocably, that he’d fallen in love with these incredible people he’d met all those months ago. It wasn’t just infatuation, as Priscilla and Essi thought. 

He had his epiphany one night that a booty call texted him and he found himself completely uninterested, though he did remember he hadn’t gotten laid in… possibly the longest time since he’d started having sex. God, was it six months? Perhaps even longer.

“Essi, I’m in love,” he had cried to his friend after denying the generous offer, drinking his most expensive wine in the middle of his crisis.

“ _ Oh good, you can stop talking about that married couple you’ve been seeing, _ ” Essi had replied, only for Jaskier to groan. “ _ Platonically, allegedly. _ ”

“It’s them I’m talking about! And you’re not helping! It’s perfectly platonic, I’ll have you know, but the heart wants what it wants.”

“ _ Oh, Jaskier _ .” Essi had sighed, in her ‘you’re a fool but I love you’ tone. She had even driven to Jaskier’s apartment so they could pour Jaskier’s heartache into song.

It was a terrible idea to keep with his routine of being around either Geralt or Yennefer (preferably both) so often, yet Jaskier discovered his heart bled more if he tried to keep his distance. The damage was done, and it was only to himself, so what did it matter if Jaskier chose to prolong the sweet torture that was being so close to the ones he loved without being able to touch them, to care for them as he wanted to? Oh, he didn’t mean just sex. He had always enjoyed the afterglow more: the cuddling, the caresses, the kisses on the forehead or the shoulders, the breakfasts in bed? Oh, how he  _ yearned _ , but he was lucky enough to have them as friends, and they were happy together (despite more than one tumultuous fight that they had, occasionally in Jaskier’s presence) so yearning was all he could ever do.

The purest form of love, he realized, was just wishing to witness their happiness from as close a seat as he could. And he had always been selfless in his loving, giving more than he received in every relationship (or any resemblance of it) that he had, but with Geralt and Yennefer, it felt different. They had taken residence in the cage of his ribs, nestling with the vibrant but desperate hummingbird that was his heart. Jaskier didn’t think he could go back to living without their warmth, even though at times it seemed to burn him to a crisp.

No matter, Jaskier told himself. He could be a phoenix too, and pick himself up from the ashes as many times as he had to, if it meant having them in his life.

In the course of their friendship, the topic of Jaskier’s birthday had never come up. They had celebrated Geralt’s and then Yennefer’s, and during each celebration Jaskier had been able to meet wonderful people like Geralt’s brothers and father and Yennefer’s friends. He had even performed for Ciri and her friends on her birthday and invited Essi and Priscilla to play and sing with him. Yennefer’s family was very dear to her, and she liked hosting big parties even if her husband scowled through most of them and Jaskier was always around to help her with every single detail she wanted.

As a consequence, Jaskier remembered his birthday just the night before the date, when Priscilla called to ask about his plans.

“Are we hitting a bar as usual, sending a massive invite to everyone we know and getting drunk, or are you spending it with your new best friends?” she asked, mock-jealous. “You know, the ones you replaced me and Essi with that you totally are head over heels for and it’s going nowhere?”

They were sharp with their words. They were  _ poets _ , so they had to be. Jaskier was used to his friend’s wit and snark, yet he found himself tearing up over it.

He wanted-what he wanted did not matter. His chest burned and clenched, air turning into smoke, and he blinked, blindsided by his own tears. He wiped his cheek, the one not currently pressed to his phone, and used all of his exquisite voice control to speak evenly.

“Yes, I think I’m going over to Geralt and Yennefer’s this time, dear. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Of course not, silly. God knows it’ll be healthier for my poor liver. Do make room in your busy schedule to have lunch with us on the weekend, yeah?”

On autopilot, Jaskier put a post-it on his fridge with a reminder he was to go out on Saturday with Essi and Priscilla, and have a Bloody Mary instead of the usual large number of shots he downed on his birthday party.

Right, the birthday party- that he wasn’t having, because he was not going to call Yennefer and go, “Hey, darling, you know it’s my birthday tomorrow? Would you be a dear and let me go spend it with you and your husband? Nothing would make me happier, and I’ll buy my own cake! What would you like? Black forest gateau, of course, I’m just kidding, I know it’s your favourite, and I’ll get it at your favourite bakery, you know you can trust me!”

He drank the one bottle of red he had left and cried himself to sleep. It was okay to wallow for just a few hours, and it was his goddamn birthday after all. If he wanted to weep, by all means he was going to.

His usual high energy was lacking the next morning during his run with Geralt and Roach. The slightly taller man kept turning and looking at him, as if waiting for Jaskier to spill and tell him what was going on. And sure, that was how Jaskier would proceed, but he didn’t want- no, confessing the source of his grief even vaguely was too dangerous.

“Are you sick?” Geralt asked, after Roach licked Jaskier’s whole face as goodbye. She was only that affectionate with her owner, though Jaskier did get a lick on the hand here and there.

And indeed, Jaskier was. He was lovesick, and maybe dear Roach had known all along.

“What? No, just a bit distracted, sorry,” he answered, feeling his bright smile was lukewarm but unable to do anything about it.

“Jaskier,” Geralt frowned and snatched Jaskier’s arm when the musician tried to leave for his car. “Tell me what’s wrong. I’ll fix it.”

He was so good and earnest and lovely, Jaskier thought, despairing. He could not break down in front of his beloved friend and worry him more than he was doing already.

“It’s nothing, really.”

“Is it that asshole again?” Geralt growled lowly, looking around as if Valdo Marx would appear at any moment and he could punch his ugly mug in. He’d done it once, and it had been the best day of Jaskier’s life. “I will have his fucking head.”

Geralt’s hand was still holding Jaskier’s arm firmly, and it was hard to let go when Jaskier didn’t actually want to be apart from him.

“I’m just being silly,” Jaskier tried to reassure, giving both Geralt and Roach a quick hug before retreating to his car. “Have a good day, Geralt! I’ll see you tomorrow!”

His social media kept sending alerts to his phone. He muted everything, and for the first time since college didn’t make a thirsty birthday post. He was a freelance songwriter for other artists, and he decided to take the day off from his studio, taking a tub of cookies and cream ice cream from the fridge before picking a sad movie to watch. 

P.S. I Love You always did wonders to clear his tear ducts, and afterward he sang along with Legally Blonde the Musical until he felt slightly less miserable.

_ What about love? I never mentioned love. The timing’s bad, I know. But perhaps if I’d made it more clear, that you belong right here, you wouldn’t have to go 'cause you'd know that I'm so much in love... _

Jaskier knew he’d be okay tomorrow, but his birthdays were historically disastrous. While he was growing up, his parents didn’t care for him at all, and when he was in college, he started the tradition of having a big, meaningless party that not many guests would know was actually his birthday, but they’d be there to keep him company, to make him feel like he mattered. Essi and Priscilla had tagged along and followed his lead.

This year though, Jaskier didn’t want empty happiness. He wanted the real thing or nothing at all.

So nothing it was.

***

He’d fallen asleep on his couch, the fabric leaving unbecoming imprints on his cheek and forehead when a ring startled him. Confused, he padded to his door phone. Had he ordered something? Pizza and beer, maybe? That was properly trashy food, enough to match how he was feeling. Yennefer would have a stroke if she knew what Jaskier was eating, on his birthday no less.

“Hello?”

“ _ Get your arse down, Jaskier, we’re going out. _ ”

Speak of the Devil. “Yennefer?”

“ _ Do I need to repeat myself? _ ”

“Oh no no no, I'm coming!”

Panicking in an absent sort of way, Jaskier washed his face, left his hair to be the mess it was, and put on some clothes that were fitting for a night out with Yennefer. Had they made plans for a show and Jaskier forgot? Shit shit shit, he was in so much trouble.

He ran down the stairs (he lived on the twelfth floor but the lift was taking too long) and panted as he skidded to a halt in front of his friend, who was impatiently tapping her stilettos on the sidewalk.

“Oh sweetheart, I’m so sorry, I totally forgot-”

“Shut up, you’re an idiot,” she cut him off, dragging him to her car by the hand, as they sometimes did. Dazed, Jaskier sat shotgun in her black, last model Audi, and fidgeted under her glare.

“I mean, true, but I didn't mean-”

“I said shut up.” She started the engine and off they were.

Oh God. She was truly angry, Jaskier had fucked up real bad this time. He bit his lip and tried to rein the sobs in. It was hard, after hours of indulging in crying his heart out.

When she parked outside her home, Jaskier visibly cringed. Oh fuck, they were so late to whatever he’d forgotten they couldn’t make it, that had never happened before. What if Yennefer didn’t want to see him ever again?

Trembling and slightly woozy, he let Yennefer pull him out of the car. He noticed she was still in one of her dark pencil skirts and white blouse from work, and heaven, she was stunning, but Jaskier still wanted to wail.

Once they got inside, everything was shrouded in darkness. He closed his eyes as if expecting to be slapped, and opened them with a start at feeling a familiar, broad arm around his shoulders.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JASKIER!!!”

Essi, Priscilla and every friend Jaskier had introduced to Yennefer at some point were there, screaming and grinning at him.

“What--? How--?” he stammered.

Ciri showed him her phone triumphally. She had  _ googled  _ his birthday, the nerve of that wonderful girl. “I did check it was real with Essi, and she said yes and that you were supposed to be here with us, so…”

“Here you are,” Yennefer finished, wrapping a slender arm around Jaskier’s waist.

Utterly flabbergasted, he turned to hide his face against Geralt’s neck. He could probably catch a fly with how his jaw was hanging open, and that was so undignified Yennefer was sure to chastise him for it.

Geralt all but guided him in, holding him close. “You’re an idiot,” he murmured in his deep rumble of a voice, echoing Yennefer’s assessment from earlier.

“You’re not wrong,” Jaskier laughed, leaning into Geralt as much as he dared. “Thank you, this means- it means the world to me.”

Yennefer had gotten a chocolate mousse cake, which was Jaskier’s favourite, and it was  _ enormous _ . She had to have magical powers to be able to pull stuff like this out of nowhere.

Jaskier told her as much.

“You’re magic, you know? This is amazing,” he gushed, drunk enough to just smile dopily at her when she chose to sit on the armrest next to him, inches from his lap and stroked the line of his jaw with her fingertips. 

“I’m aware,” her smile was soft, and the goosebumps she was raising on his skin distantly reminded him of his predicament, but he pushed it to the back of his mind. “I could’ve done much better, if you had  _ told _ me it was your birthday.”

Jaskier shrugged in a way that he hoped was apologetic. “Best birthday  _ ever _ , and you didn’t even have to try.”

“Hmm-mm,” she didn’t sound as happy as Jaskier, but then again, her standards were absurdly high.

Once the guests had left and Ciri had tired herself of taking pictures of the three of them, Jaskier curled up on their big couch, ready to go to sleep right then and there, giggling when Roach finally appeared to give him some doggy kisses.

It turned out he was not supposed to because Geralt hauled him up like a sack of potatoes and carried him over one shoulder.

“Oomph, Geralt, as much as I’d normally appreciate seeing this new angle of your lovely bottom, I think I might throw up,” he rambled in light warning, his hair flopping down to his face so he blew it away, making Yennefer laugh.

“You can throw up on him, not my sheets.”

“Thanks, Yen,” Geralt deadpanned.

Jaskier managed to keep his birthday cake in as Geralt put him down in bed but squinted as he looked around and realized they were in the master bedroom. He’d been inside plenty of times, usually to comment on Yennefer’s outfits or push Geralt into the shower (the man had many qualities, but recognizing when his own body odor was a little too much was not one of them).

They had a king bed, plenty big for them and probably Roach as well.

“Why am I on your bed?” he asked, suddenly very sober, heart hammering fast in his chest. He half hoped, half dreaded they were offering him to have a birthday threesome.

About ten months or so ago, his answer would’ve been an enthusiastic yes, but now…

Geralt pulled a dark blue velvet box out of the closest bedside table, clearly meant for a ring.

“We had this made for Christmas, but-” Geralt frowned, midway through his explanation, and looked at Yennefer to go on.

_ Oh.  _ Christmas, Jaskier recalled. He’d been coming back from a concert outside of town, and a blizzard had trapped him, Priscilla and Essi at the airport. They didn’t have a bad time because they were together, but Jaskier had ached to spend Christmas Eve with Geralt and Yennefer like they had planned.

And Yennefer had borrowed one of Jaskier’s rings, stating she needed it for his gift.

He was indeed an idiot.

“We had Ciri for New Year’s, and I wanted everything to be perfect, so we kept putting it off,” Yennefer finished. “Since the ring is just a symbol, I wanted us to have our own little ceremony, just the three of us, but today is the perfect day, and I want you to have it.”

“I do too,” Geralt affirmed, opening the box to reveal a beautiful silver ring, embedded with small sapphires, glittering in the low light of the room. “If you want-”

“Yes,  _ yes _ ,” Jaskier said vehemently, reaching for their hands to hold on to because he felt like he was falling, the ground disappearing under him and leaving him floating on clouds. “Please.”

Hardly believing what was happening, Jaskier offered a slightly shaky hand for Geralt to slide the ring onto his ring finger while Yennefer pressed her lips to the corner of his mouth. Jaskier tilted his head until their lips brushed, and he sighed against her as she kissed him back and pressed closer. Once they broke apart, Jaskier brought Geralt to lean his forehead against his with his left hand on his nape, kissing him softly, tasting the rare smile on his mouth for the first time.

“I’m going to wake up and cry a lot,” Jaskier declared after a lovely but dizzying amount of kissing, because whether this was a dream or a dream come true, he was going to be crying a lot in the morning.

“We’ll be right here,” Geralt promised, taking off Jaskier’s shoes and pants gently before undressing himself and tucking Jaskier against his chest.

They both watched as Yennefer removed her make-up, sitting down on her vanity table with the prettiest smile Jaskier had ever seen on her. She peered at them from under her lashes when she was done, disappearing into their walk-in closet instead of getting in bed with them.

“Hurry up,” Geralt grumbled, eyes already closed. Jaskier was a little busy; he’d turned to trace the seamless features of Geralt’s handsome face because he  _ could _ .

“Take your time, love, we’ll be right here,” Jaskier called after her, his voice honey-sweet with joy.

“Do take notes, Geralt. That’s how you should talk to me,” she teased, poking her head out.

Geralt rolled his eyes, cursing under his breath. Jaskier chuckled and patted him on the cheek. He knew them well, and they weren’t ones for pet names, which was more than fine now: Jaskier could use enough for the three of them.


End file.
